Category Archives: sexuality

I am sitting in my bed trying to wrap my mind around what I’m going to do in the next few hours. Little by little, I’ve been preparing my bedroom to serve as a set for the disabled erotic modeling I will do. It’s taken a lot because my bedroom has been a real mess for years because I’ve been so physically limited for so long. In addition, psychologically, part of me has learned to be wary. I am normally a very sexual person in appropriate circumstances. Indeed, I revel in my sexuality! I’ve even envisioned photographs taken of me and one of my “types” of lovers as we lay in bed semi-nude. It would be gorgeous and I’d be very proud to be a part of it. The thing that concerns me here is that, once I deliver the product, I have no control over what happens. I know what’s supposed to happen and I know that the site will do all that it can to protect me and the art if for no other reason than they lose both money and the trust of their models when photos end up where they were not intended. Be that as it may, all it takes is one person to buy the set and then put the photos on one of the many bulletin boards that cater to different fetishes. I know what happened to a couple of short stories I wrote ten to 15 years ago. They went what we’d now call “viral.” I’m still finding them and sending cease and desist letters! A friend asked if he could publish one of them on his website and I agreed. That was a very long time ago, the story is still there and I have no idea how to reach my friend.

The other issue that gives me pause is that I am about to launch a brand new business. In one sense, the photos could help publicize the new business. In another sense, the business could, at some point, not only publicize the photos, but spin off a site specifically for women of a particular type. I’ve always been a believer in the aphorism that less is more. In this case, the less skin shown, the more the viewers’ imagination can fill in the blanks. In this way, no one is in any way put in a position where they must engage in more explicit activity to receive higher payment. The site where I will put my photos does not pressure models to engage in explicit activity as I understand it. Until I experience otherwise, I’ll take the owner’s word for it. However, I do know that the more explicit material does sell better than less explicit. I can understand that and I do believe the models deserve more for their material.

I wonder, however, how many women are like me. I am doing this not because I seek to create art for art’s sake. I am doing this because I have no where else to turn financially. I am doing what women have done since time began: I am trying to save my family. My family consists of me and my three four-legged “daughters.” The primary issue is keeping a roof over our heads, especially since I need surgery and am in no way strong enough to undertake a major move, particularly since that move would involve packing my belongings, probably leaving many here, and leaving the state. Right now, I’m facing a citation from the city because my lawn needs to be mowed and the weeds our former lawn person brought in when he dumped infected fill dirt in our beautiful back yard (without permission, I might add) absolutely must be eliminated. I also owe my attorneys thousands of dollars and will have to break a promise I made to myself to never, ever give the bank that made a very predatory loan to my mother, KeyBank National, a dime. In short, my back is against the wall. I would be so proud to create true art with semi-nudes or even full nudes. My skin color lends itself well to black and white photography. I would not be ashamed or hesitant to engage in a photo shoot like that. Hell, I’ve done it before and was very pleased with the results. But I hate this. I hate this because I cannot be my full, wonderful, sensual, sexy self. I will do my best, but I don’t know if I can make it seem as though I’m not doing this under duress. The duress is that I absolutely must have the money that will come from these photos. Even a little bit every week would be immensely helpful.

There is so much to say and no time to fully explore the ramifications at this moment. I have to dust, make my bed, hang lights and get myself ready. I still don’t know exactly what outfit I’m going to wear. Oy! I’m also going to put on my smile, hold my head high and represent the very real sexuality of black, disabled, Rubenesque women. We ROCK!

I should be in my bed working on sleeping right now. I have a lot to do tomorrow, most of it having to do with the upcoming photo shoot. I’ve decided to really embrace it, especially since I can do a couple of different sets of photos at a time. I need to make sure that there is enough product to see me through August. That means I’m going to have to invest more money to make more money. Right now, I’m just tired. It all seems like an enormous deal when it really isn’t.

I’ve been thinking about moving out of the state for the last week. Granted, I’ve actually been thinking about it more on than off for over a year. Then, I realized that I don’t want to leave this city. I love it. That’s not to say I wouldn’t love the city to which I’m considering moving, because I have a feeling that I might (if I can get over my fear of snakes). But this will always be home. It doesn’t matter what relatives are alive or dead, this is home for me.

The real reason I’ve been thinking more favorably about moving is that I’ve changed. I’m trying really hard to wrap my head around it, but I think I’ve moved over to about a 3 on the Kinsey Scale. That means I’m more heterosexual than homosexual. I don’t know exactly how or when that happened, but it has. I’m not straight, just more interested in men. The area I would move to has a thriving tech industry that’s growing. With them comes an overflow of men. The thing is, everyone I know in the area knows me as a female-focused bi woman or as a lesbian. They’d get a bit of a shock were they to experience me as I am now. Do I really want to deal with that drama? No! I’m sick of drama. In fact, I’m going to be exorcising this blog of all the drama in the form of a couple of tags and categories because I want to reclaim my blog as my own. I feel that it’s been sullied by being viewed by TEWSNBN, who I’d like to go away now and come back in a couple of years. Better yet, don’t come back here. Let my lawyer deal with his lawyer if he just has to. Stupid move, but it’s his choice. I want to get back to being open about who I am, what’s going on with my life and feeling OK about writing the same. Right now, I feel somewhat violated.

The other thing about the area I’m considering is that it’s in the real South. There is most definitely something to be said about southern gentlemen. I’ve met a number of them. With few exceptions, they treat women a lot better than those in the North. I’m tired of being treated like crap because I’m not het. It is very painful to have someone you trust spew venomous words at you because he can’t take being told “No” because I am not into men. On the surface, this makes no sense. The South is the Bible Belt and I’m only going to get more abuse from the men down there when I reveal that I am not straight. Maybe. Maybe not. The people moving into the area aren’t necessarily of the Bible Belt variety. But if they aren’t, aren’t they the ones I’d be running from up here? I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers yet. I just know that I’ve had enough abuse of the emotional and sexual varieties to last three lifetimes. That isn’t hyperbole. I wish it was. That’s why this book is so important for me. I can think of a couple of different ways to write it, but I need to do some other things before I even begin to think about it. Of course, that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about it, but at least I know that there are other priorities and this needs to sit on the shelf for a few months. I’ll make my notes and come back to them when I can.

Someone told me that I have a life to live. Yeah, I guess they’re right. I’m going to bed and watch whatever is on my DVR as I fall asleep. It’s a damn shame I can’t travel back in time. I would do it in a hot minute. Oh well.

Gang, I apologize in advance for what I’m about to do. Since Glenn has been snooping around here and he’s said he didn’t want me to contact him, this is the only way for me to let him know some things. I really, really hate that this has to be public, but he’s left me no choice. He’ll regret it soon enough because he lost a real opportunity to have input into my book. There’s nothing I can do about it. It was his choice and he has to live with the consequences just like everyone else. Such is life. *shrug*

Well, Glenn, I hope you found what you were looking for. I know that you weren’t happy with a lot of it, but there is nothing I can do about it. I wouldn’t if I could for the simple reason that I told the truth about my feelings. I’ve been reaching out to you for a few weeks over a decade with no response. I didn’t know why. Most of the time I assumed that it was because you wanted to see me in pain. That was your motivation a decade ago. You are the kind of person who withholds necessary knowledge because it gives you power. You’ve always been that way. It’s pretty miserable if you’re the person who needs the information that’s being withheld. It also signals a certain mean-spirited mindset.

I’ve always known that you had a mean streak that could overtake the rest of you if you weren’t careful. I’ve seen it and been on the receiving end of it. You strike out at people before they can strike out at you, so you believe. That way, you have more control of the situation. I knew that if you married your spouse, the chances were very good that the wonderful, beautiful, promising parts of you would be lost. She is who she is and she’s one mean woman. That meanness walked two feet in front of her at all times. I was warned about her when I asked someone what her problem was when we were all at Oberlin. I didn’t know who she was in relation to you at the time. The two of you got together and destroyed the person I was and damn near killed me, quite literally. While you didn’t make me swallow a nearly-full bottle of Ativan, you pounded and pounded and pounded my psyche into the ground until there was nothing left. My suicide was definitely a foreseeable event. I don’t even think you would have cared when the cops came knocking at your door, because they would, you know. The journal entries you decided you didn’t want to see give a pretty good recitation of what was done.

It had been my hope that you’d marry me. You know that. However, what you may not have known is that I knew you wouldn’t “go over to the dark side” if you were with me. The problem is that, had you decided to “punish” me for some perceived slight, you could and would verbally slice me to pieces. Our marriage may well not have lasted because I would have found the strength to leave. Then again, I may have become so hardened as a way of protecting myself that I’d be practically unrecognizable. Yes, Glenn, you are an abuser. It is what I’d hoped you wouldn’t be. Because I was young and dumb, I thought I could make you happy enough to keep you from being abusive to me or anyone else. There really is such a great person inside of you. That’s the young man, then the not-so-young man, with whom I fell in love. I still love that person, but you aren’t him. I cannot love the person you have shown me you are now. You cannot imagine how incredibly sad that makes me.

Ever since I refused to have phone sex with you and told you that I was, at that time, identifying as a lesbian, you haven’t said a civil word to me. In fact, you’ve said some pretty awful, hate-filled things to me, about me, about lesbians. What the hell is your problem? Has no one ever told you “No”? Sorry, but it happens like that sometimes. I wasn’t your dial-a-whore, but that’s the way you treated me that night. You showed no respect for, or empathy towards, me. It was all about you all the time. I’ve long suspected a couple of things about you. The first is that you were abused emotionally, physically or sexually at some point in time. Frankly, you show a great many symptoms. Be that as it may, that doesn’t excuse your evil deeds and evil words.

I was about to say that I think you’re a narcissist. I can’t do it. Yes, you have a lot of narcissistic traits, a lack of empathy and projection of your own thinking onto others for starters, I’m not in a position to tell someone else they have some personality disorder. However, you do tend to think I have ulterior motives when I’ve been open and honest about what I wanted. You were actually patient and encouraging during that two week period a decade ago when I was very afraid of telling you how I felt. You completely fooled me. I walked into the trap and was savaged by you and/or your mate. I will never understand how you could do that to me when we were lovers for 17 years and I’d done nothing to you except told you that I was a lesbian and that I wouldn’t get you off over the phone. Granted, I didn’t do it in a particularly sensitive way given that that was the first time I’d heard from you in a year and then you call because you wanted phone sex, but I didn’t deserve what you, your spouse and/or your business partner did to me. I am 75% sure that your fingers weren’t at the keyboard because I couldn’t get the person to call me and discuss things. That person obviously didn’t want to have his or her identity discovered. It was a cowardly, twisted, disgusting individual who did that. Was it you? I bet you’d cop to it to keep me from thinking it’s your spouse. Therefore, don’t bother answering the question. You’d lie.

It would have been so simple for you to avoid whatever it is that you’re afraid of and also spare me a great deal of pain. Granted, you don’t give a damn about me, but you could have saved yourself all of the concern you obviously feel. All you had to do was talk things out with me. I’m not out to hurt you, although you aren’t going to look very good at all in my book. Believe it or not, I really wasn’t into making your spouse look terrible either. However, I’m also not going to water things down. You had an opportunity to influence what I write. Now, you don’t. You assumed that I am devious, manipulative, unscrupulous and a liar. That isn’t who I am at all. Look in the mirror. You’ll see the person you think I am. I honestly feel sorry for you and sad because you can’t fully enjoy life if you think everyone is out to get you. I do, however, wonder how many compromises you’ve had to make in your life given who you’re married to. But, that’s not my problem and neither are you. Those questions are for you and your spouse to answer for yourselves.

In conclusion, I wish to reiterate that I no longer want any kind of romantic or sexual relationship with you. You grew into the person I feared you would given 24/7 association with your spouse. I’m also not going to waste time on someone who can’t manage a civil word out of his mouth for reasons that totally escape me. As I said, you’ve been that way since I refused your request for phone sex. I also can’t deal with your homophobia. That’s evil. In fact, a lot of the things you’ve said and done are pure evil. That is not what I want in my life. I’ve spent 34 years of my life loving you. It ended last week and I feel somewhat relieved. I have my life back. Be that as it may, a decade of my life was taken, stolen and robbed from me. That’s something I can’t forgive or forget. I will leave that to God, but don’t be surprised if Fate deals your household a dirty hand. The world likes balance.

Depending on what I write, I may have my attorney contact you. The manuscript won’t be finished for a long time yet. I’m looking at possibly two years, perhaps 18 months. This is much bigger than just you. I am writing about emotional, physical and sexual abuse. It’s a subject I know well. And yes, you will be included, as will your spouse to some degree. If you’ve consulted an intellectual property attorney, I’m sure s/he told you that you really can’t do anything to me until the book is published. Even then, New Jersey law is not in your favor since I do have a right to write about my own life.

You had so much promise. Now, knowing what you’ve become, I feel nothing but sadness. I don’t know if it’s even possible for you to change should you walk away or somehow become unmarried. I think you’d still be the angry, bitter, paranoid, mean person you are. You can put a smile on your face, but that doesn’t take care of what’s inside. It’s what’s inside of you that’s toxic. How very, very sad.

I’ve read nearly all of my first journal begun one week after I’d contacted Glenn a full decade ago this past March 22. I began it as a woman absolutely giddy with happiness at being able to talk to the man she loved more than herself seven or nine years after he hung up on her when she came out to him in the wrong way, granted, but not deserving of a discussion at least, to; a woman barely hanging on to life, being purposely reckless in the hope Fate would relieve her of the agony of not knowing why he turned on her all of a sudden in mid-conversation, blamed her for even thinking that he’d had any interest, telling her he didn’t care whether she rejected or embraced her love for him because he wasn’t “going there,” saying that she had been “dyking around for a decade,” that she didn’t “want this dick and to run as fast and as far as she can.” Destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. I’d trusted him more than any PERSON on the planet, loved him more than ANY PERSON on the planet and had ultimately given more of myself to him than I had ANY PERSON on the planet. Destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. Even now, after reading 10 years later, hanging on to this reality by my fingernails to keep from sinking into The Pit once more even though someone(s) destroyed the woman who was then. I can’t have relationships no matter the gender of the other person because I can’t trust enough or give enough of myself. I was punished for loving women even though I loved him, assuming the words came from him. I’m not at all sure they did. The circumstances suggest the horror could easily have been from the hagbeast monster or his gay male business partner. If the latter, it was at his request. If the former, he probably didn’t know. We went from flirting to destruction after he went away from the screen for a few minutes. That sceptic cunt could have snuck in easily. Especially since whoever was on the other end of the IM wouldn’t speak to me via voice.

I’ve been struggling with anorexia for about a week now. I’d just worked up to eating a whole sandwich, but was drinking more liquids. Now, not only don’t I care, I don’t want to eat. I mean, I ACTIVELY don’t want to eat. I’m trying to get through this because of the girls. I can’t abandon them. The thing is, I don’t think I can do this by myself and I honestly don’t know who to call who won’t make me feel worse than I already do.

I had a terrible shock. I found a portion of a journal entry meant to be found after I’d properly suicided. It contained two phone numbers. One was Glenn’s cell and the other was for a former mutual friend. I called the one for Glenn, never anticipating that it would work. It did. I was so unnerved I couldn’t talk to him. So, in the course of three days I’ve reached him twice after well over 100 letters sent to the usual usernames owners of private mail servers set up. Over 100 letters he said he never received even though some were sent via the “Contact Us” form for his record company. Granted, for a year or more I haven’t used it because I didn’t get a confirmation of receipt from the server and assumed I’d been blocked. But I have also gotten really good at setting up disposable accounts, hoping that something would get through in some fashion.

I never want to leave my bed, but the girls need to eat and go potty. I feel as I did when I had agoraphobia. Anything and nearly everyone is dangerous outside of this room. There are so many ways to kill a person while leaving them with a beating heart. There are so many ways to die and still breathe. I have to focus on the girls. If not, I will die one way or the other. I can go inside myself and never come out. I am so close to that now that I have to work to just stay present.

How could Glenn/hagbeast/gay oh business partner do this to someone whose worst “crime” was loving someone and then determining that she loved those of her own gender more at one point? Had Glenn talked to me, I would have given in. Not to the phone sex, but to allowing him access to body, soul and heart. I would give up women for him. I would have then and I would now if he was willing to do the obvious and make us “us”–hagbeast included, if I just had to, as long as he committed.

This is not the first time I’ve tried to write this book. The first time was way before I was ready. The publisher read the mess I submitted and gently told me to get some therapy and try again later. I told her I couldn’t write it then because all I do is cry while I’m typing. I don’t think she believed me until she saw the mess of the first few chapters. I’d forgotten about that until reading the journals, too. Five or six therapists later and I’m still crying as I type.

What the fuck is going on? Someone please, tell me. First, as I’m about to give up and give in to giving up on relationships, I hear and see my mother frantically trying to tell me NOT to forget about or give up on Glenn. She didn’t even like him! So, I ignore her until I realize I can’t blindside him and his kids. I NEVER intended to talk to him before mailing him a set of questions after getting well into writing a manuscript, but I wanted him to know what was coming. After ten years and a few phone messages as late as last year, he answers the phone. On a Sunday. Today, I call a 10-yr-old cell number I didn’t even know I had and he answers. I cannot hope where he is concerned. That’s especially true now that I’ve read how he or someone tried to blame me for essentially making any perceived interest up. I’ve got notes from conversations. I didn’t make anything up. And, if I made everything up, then how could he have been playing a joke? I did remember that that was part of the conversation I’d initially forgotten due to stress. It was remembered much later. It is a habit my brain learned as a child: bury the most destructive, painful memories deep inside where they can’t be found. That kept me sane and I do not exaggerate.

What does one do when one truly wants to die but can’t? Endure. What does one do when one can no longer endure? I’m frantically trying to determine who can raise my girls if it comes to that. I just can’t bear the thought of their pain after losing my mother so recently. I am in hell.

I’m so sad today. I was sad anyway and then I saw that an Airedale acquaintance’s mother died yesterday. She was your age, but not as well preserved. I wrote to her of the things I’ve learned since you died last year, even those things I haven’t been able to do myself. For instance, I haven’t had a chance to really mourn you for more than a day or two because the vultures began to circle almost immediately. Since I feel you with me so often, I’m sure you know that I had to fire Wes. That was awkward, but, I got two great lawyers who protect both of us.

You got me in trouble, young lady, when you dropped dead the day you were supposed to get the license tags. I got stopped and the minivan almost got impounded, but the officer took pity on me and let me keep it. Still, I couldn’t drive it for over a month while Shia did some creative lawyering so that I could get the tags you would have gotten. Then, would you believe that I forgot about the court date for the ticket and had to go to REAL court Wednesday with Marvin? After he got me out of that, what does he see but the “new” tag was only good for the nine days before your birthday and I needed to go get yet another set of tags for another $100. I ended up laughing because there was nothing else I could do. I don’t even know what I owe Marvin. I’ll be paying him and Shia for the rest of my life! I’ll tell you more about Marvin later, but suffice it to say, he is very familiar with Daddy’s former line of business and laughed when I told him a bit about it. Finally, someone I can talk to about Daddy! I know Daddy wishes there were things I didn’t know, but I do now and I did when he was alive. I don’t love him any less. He looks after me, too, Mom–Daddy, I mean. I didn’t want to tell you when you were alive because I know how jealous you were of my feelings for him. But he really, really looks after me. He thinks that he’s “making up” for the time we were apart and, for whatever reason, we didn’t see each other as often as we should. Although, I had a good talk with Aunt Ethel the other day considering the date. She told me that Daddy actually spent a lot of time with me when I was in the early single digits. I understand why you two couldn’t stay together, but I really wish things had been different.

Mommy, I really, really need you now. I don’t mean the crazy you of the last decade or so. I mean the you you were when I was in my mid-20s through mid-30s or so. In other words, the you that wasn’t as mentally ill or medically ill as you can safely acknowledge now. Yeah, I know. One of the reasons I don’t talk to Sonny is because of what he did that kept you getting more and more ill. Hell, that doesn’t even cover the fact that he’s a lying, hypocritical, envious individual. Yeah, I’m angry with him. Whatever. I need the you that I hope you became again once you passed on.

I remember you telling me about some of the people you and Daddy knew when you were married. You both accepted them for who they were. These days, I’m having a really hard time with who I am. If I were a pure spirit, then, I’d know. I’m not. I have this body and I don’t know who it needs anymore. I know what my mind needs: someone who can keep it engaged. I know what my heart needs: someone who will love me with no reservations. My body has been the thing that kept me from the person I loved the most. That says more about him than it does about me, I agree. However, where is he? You were right when you said that no one drives over 500 miles for a booty call–several times. And no one has me fly out there solely for a booty call. Again, where is he? Finally, no one tracks me up and down the Eastern Seaboard for a booty call. Why isn’t he here next to me?

You told me, correctly, that men are essentially foolish to the point of stupidity. Even they don’t know why they do what they do. You, with the exception of your two marriages, the last one to the Devil himself, were really good at understanding them. I never was. They were and are as foreign to me as Chinese. There are days I think I have more in common with elephants than I do with human males, especially the adult variety. I feel as though it’s time for me to do something. I do want to write the book because Lord knows there’s enough material! But what else? Mommy, I keep hearing you and feeling you and what you’ve consistently said. I am picking up your “insights” more and more as I get older. That seemed to start shortly after you were gone. Anyway, I feel what you felt independent of what you’d said, but I need someone better. I need someone who is worthy of me and he isn’t. Not anymore he isn’t. Did you know that when we went to check out that law school in NYC that the doorman saw me with him and shook his head? He didn’t shake it because of me, but because of you-know-who. It puzzled me then and I didn’t think of it until many, many years later. Maybe that elderly gentleman could see that he would do nothing but bring me a lot of heartache and never quite grow into being a man. He was right–at least so far.

Mom, I couldn’t talk to you about this when you were alive, although I wanted to. It took you a while to accept who I was and that I didn’t like men in general. Then, I think you caught on to the fact that there was the occasional male that caught some portion of my body’s interest if not others. Now, I don’t know what’s going on. I know what I want and it’s a HIM and I don’t even know who HE is. I just know that when I do meet him, everything in my life will make sense. If I hadn’t seen recent pictures of you-know-who, I’d think that it must be him, but it isn’t. I do know that I won’t have him for long, just like I didn’t have Daddy for long. That’s going to break my heart into a million pieces, but it will be worth it because I will have had the blessing of knowing him at all and I will be stronger–after I lose my mind, that is. 🙂 I haven’t told anyone about him. In spite of what you thought while on this plane, I hope you now know that just because something’s on the Internet doesn’t mean anyone will see it. Most of the people who read this blog are my e-friends, if not more. Hence, we’ve got the room to ourselves.

There is so much I want to say and have no coherent words, only feelings. I wish I’d been a better daughter and realized how sick you were sooner. I’m guessing, but I wish you’d taken the cardiologist’s advice. You’d be alive now and I wouldn’t have such a mess on my hands. I hate being alone, Mommy. Just as most people didn’t understand you, your family doesn’t get me, with a few exceptions. Speaking of, please tell Uncle Herbert that I miss him terribly and wish he were here. I need him, too. As you can see, the girls and I are making it as best we can. I know they see someone from time to time, but I don’t know who. You? Probably not, but maybe. I mean, I know you drop by fairly frequently and that you’re very, very sorry about the way things turned out and feel like you’ve failed. Much of the failure wasn’t your fault. Like I said, I blame Sonny for a lot of that and he can kiss my booty. Please ask if I can have my girls–all of them–for some time longer. I’ve lost a lot over these last five years. There’s only so much one person can take and I’m at my limit. But for these girls, I’d be up there with you.

OK, I guess it’s time to let you go for now. I’ll try hard not to spend so much time screaming at the ceiling when I hit yet another fucked up situation that you’ve gotten me in by not paying attention or willfully ignoring me. You know now the damage that’s been caused. I’ll deal with it. I always do, or I hire people who will. I keep hearing you becoming more and more insistent on the question of him. Why? Why? I mean, yeah, I think you’re right, but not right now. He needs to be a full-fledged man first and he isn’t. He may not be until he’s 60, regardless of what he should be. I also hear you asking who’d make me happy. Both the man I don’t know, but who is coming and the manchild, once he stops being a child and finally fully becomes a man. It’s crazy, but I know for a fact that I will both know and love the man I’ve yet to meet nearly on sight. And he will deserve me and all the love, care and loyalty I will give him. I just wish you could be here when we become “we.” In the meantime, help me keep it together until my world comes together. Oh! Don’t fight with Daddy too much, OK? He really is here much of the time taking care of me. It’s early for you yet. You’ll be here in time, too. I know it.

I qualify everything I’m about to type with the fact that I am sick. Therefore, if a sentence doesn’t make sense or there’s an obviously misspelled word, please forgive me. I’ll probably catch it later, but it has flown through the holes in my brain for the moment.

What to do? What to do? I am so confused. I think I’m in a phase where I actually have an attraction to men. I don’t mean a specific man, but men in general. That scares the daylights out of me! I have no idea what to do. I am not straight. I haven’t been straight since I was about four years old. I admit that most of my intimate emotional and physical relationships have been with males, but that general attraction pretty much stopped in my late 20s. It was then that I came out as bisexual, but I wasn’t a “true” bisexual. I didn’t like men and women equally. I definitely preferred women even though I was involved with a man at the time who was the lover of the woman who became my first female lover. If there was a box I could check that said “It’s complicated,” that would be the one I’d mark.

I think there are two factors at work. The first is that Prof. B brought up the issue of me sleeping with men and having to become monogamous AND completely lesbian. I can understand both desires. If there were a woman who connected with me intellectually, emotionally, socially and sexually, and I with her, and; who didn’t think that developmentally disabled children were things, not people and certainly not “its,” I would be happily monogamous in a lesbian relationship for as long as we both shall live, as it were. I so want that! It physically hurts at times that I don’t have a mate. The yearning is so strong that it threatens to tear me in two. I’ve been alone most of my life. Yet, I am not someone who is emotionally equipped to be alone. I need that person I can trust to have my back. I need that person I can turn to when there is no one else who will listen, even if that person doesn’t have answers for me. I need someone who values me as a person and as a bright, loving person who has a great deal to give to someone else and to the world. I need to know that I really do matter to another person. If I could build that person, she would be a woman with a penis. Really! Thank the good Lord that penises can be ordered online!

The second factor is that I’ve been spending time at the gym, although I haven’t been in over a week because my body feels like crap due to a fibro flare I thought I could exercise through, but couldn’t. While I haven’t really spoken to a lot of men, I do have an opportunity to see more of them up close and personal. They don’t stink the way they used to. Did my sense of smell change? I also saw a couple who fit my two, very different, physical profiles of attractive men. The first profile is what gay boyz call a “bear.” That means big, probably bearded, strong, very masculine. The second is one I didn’t realize I had until men kept physically reminding me of the-ex-who-shall-not-be-named (TEWSNBN, maybe I’ll pronounce that “twos’ nibin”). That type would be a bit on the short side, no taller than about 5’9″; canine teeth that are noticeably sharper, and; arms that are slightly long for his height. As TEWSNBN once said, he looks a bit simian. At the time, I tried to deny it, but he was right. Like it or not, black men with that look immediately grab my attention.

There are a couple of each kind at the gym. I’ve said a few words to one of each type. Nothing I actually thought about, but things that came out of my mouth organically. For instance, there was this machine where I couldn’t lock in the weight and I asked this big, handsome bear of a man if he could help. He was a doll, as “bears” frequently are. He not only showed me how to do it, but explained a couple of the other machines too. The more “simian” guy just happened to catch my eye in the mirror as I saw him leg press an incredible amount of weight and I said, “Wow!” as my eyes grew big. He smiled back and I asked him how long it took him to be able to do that. He said that he’d been at it for years. I couldn’t help but notice how cute he was. Eh, I’m human.

I know that sexuality can go back and forth like a pendulum with some people, me included (I suppose). It’s as though there’s this smorgasbord out there and I want to taste it all. In many respects, I’ve had the sexual adventures of two or three people’s lifetimes. I just haven’t found the right person for me and s/he has yet to find me either. I’m not the kind of person who likes sitting around and waiting for things to happen to her. I like going out there and making things happen for myself. However, I think this is the most difficult task I’ve ever faced. I don’t know how to find the right person or how to be found by the right person. I feel as though I’m alone in a fatally opaque bubble where I shall remain until my dying day. I, like the rest of humanity, do not want to die alone. I have too much love to give and I know that I’ve got one hell of a hot-danged love affair in me full of intense passion, great sex, opening of windows to allow fresh air in and peace. I need to share it with someone who will appreciate it. I think my problem now is accepting that it is possible that person could be male. I’d have to do a huge mental make-over, but if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.

It has occurred to me that maybe my mate could be a male amputee. We could understand each other on a level no one else can. The idea only came to me a few hours ago as I was watching Thursday’s network evening news about vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan missing limbs. That led me to think about the photos I should have already taken and have been stressing about because I have zero energy, but they must be done because I’m utterly broke. I don’t do “poor” well because, frankly, I’ve only been poor once in my life and I could have hauled my butt back home, which is what I subsequently did. At any rate, it is my hope that my very tastefully suggestive photos reach a good man among some of the . . . shall we say . . . less than desirables. I know that I have to treat each with respect and I will. However, that doesn’t mean some won’t earn a greater respect than others. There are days and nights when it sucks to be me. I am, however, trying to make the best of it.

The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless
I can’t help feeling
We could have had it all

That’s me speaking to Glenn. OK, forget about the rest of Rolling In The Deep for the moment and just focus on those words taken somewhat out of context–but just a little. That was definitely Glenn and me. If nothing else I ever write or have written thus far is worth believing, believe me when I write this: The memories of him do leave me absolutely breathless. For the longest time, I thought that he would be the only person I’d ever feel that way about. I was with someone else for three years during the first years of his marriage. After all, he’d chosen and there was nothing I could do about it as much as it damn near killed me to continue to draw each breath afterwards. That man, I’ll call him “Gregory,” was my first Master and I loved him in ways Glenn didn’t need and kept closed to me. The difference is that I knew that I’d never spend the rest of my life with Gregory. So, although I had feelings that were nearly equal to those I had for Glenn, they fell short. Still, Gregory was probably the person in the number two spot on my list of “Loves of My Life.”

Now, there’s someone else I’ll call “Professor B.” I am head over heels in love with her mind and her heart. I don’t give a damn about her body, but her body is a real factor. It’s a miracle that we found each other to begin with. It’s an even greater miracle that she, a woman who takes love and all forms of sex far more seriously than I do, is willing to wait for me to figure out: 1) If I can promise to never sleep with another person, especially another man, and; 2) Out and out told me to go to a woman with whom I was very much in love once, and talk to her about why and how lesbians of their age tend to turn off their sexuality or take sex very seriously. That takes guts! I should say that she, feels about me the way I feel about her. There is so much to say that I should start from the beginning.

First, know that I’m typing this through curtains of intermittent tears. I’ve been confused about relationships before. This is not new. What is new is that I’ve been caught in this fucking lesbian disdain for women who sleep with men! It’s not like I sleep with men in general. I don’t. There is only one that I know of at this moment I would even consider sleeping with and he’d have to work like a motherfucker to get me to let him back into my pants and actively into my heart. We all know who that man is so I won’t bother with naming him . . . again. I can wrap my mind around making that commitment if it weren’t for Prof. B’s disabilities. Neither of us is sure she can have sex now. I am going to GUESS that if her doctors say that she can, they will also say that she will have to take it easy. That is going to be a problem.

You see, for me at least, there are different kinds of sex. Each kind has its own rewards. I have made love so achingly slow and carefully that, for me, orgasm was not going to happen and I was perfectly fine with that. The only thing I cared about was that my partner reach a pinnacle he’d never forget–or, that she would never forget. I have had sex to satisfy a craving and that meant absolutely nothing afterwards. I have been fucked royally to the point I can’t forget it if for no other reason than its raw physicality and I don’t want to. Furthermore, I want to have that experience several dozen more times in my life. Fucking can happen with a stranger or it can happen with someone you’d die for. I’m coming to realize in this moment that I would probably die for Glenn, even now. Then, there is this great woman I’m falling for and who is falling for me that I’m going to have to promise to give away part of who I am if I expect to keep her. I am so absolutely torn I’m almost incapable of forming a coherent sentence.

There are some people who’d say that I was very lucky to have loved two very different men and one woman, going on two. This is true. However, it should be noted that I am not with them now, except for the one that is current. Of the three people, only two were viable in the sense that a very long-term relationship was possible. Gregory was, I do believe, a love/sex addict. In the end, we wore each other out emotionally. Anytime ALL of a Master’s slaves get together and say that he’s in trouble, he’s in trouble. He wasn’t happy with any of us afterwards, but that’s neither here nor there. I know that I stayed with him and tried to help him, terrified half the time that I would lose him. He kept the woman I loved dearly (I’ll call her “Khat”) and, although he consistently failed to acknowledge it, was really his primary partner. There is so much pain there still that I’m going to move off of him as a subject. Suffice it to say that Glenn and Khat were the only viable relationships. Although memories of Glenn turn up in odd places, he is effectively gone from my life and has been for many years. The same is true of Khat.

The title of this post was half in jest. The other, non-humorous part, is true. I don’t think I’d use the word “fault,” but he showed me how all forms of sex, but especially the combination of fucking and making love, can have a power that is absolutely indescribably, utterly, wonderful. I want that again and Prof. B cannot give it to me. I’m not sure it’s even in her to give it to me regardless of her disability. She’s more of the slow, aching kind of sex. That is going to leave me very frustrated and ultimately unhappy. I know that I absolutely must have the raw, physical kind of sex from time to time to keep me happy. She’s said that if I or anyone she’s with has an itch that just has to be scratched, she didn’t want to know about it. I can deal with that. However, when I pushed the issue tonight, she told me that she wants total monogamy even if I end up moving out of the state. I don’t think I can promise that to anyone. That’s not to say that I’d fall in love with someone else because I am damn hard to satisfy intellectually and keen intellect is a deal breaker. Therefore, I’d say that falling in love with someone else is remote. That notwithstanding, wanting to jump someone else’s bones, or vice versa, is inevitable in that circumstance. For that matter, it’s inevitable in the circumstance I’m trying so hard to get my mind around.

It has occurred to me that maybe I’m just not ready to give Glenn up. That is to say, to put him in the proper perspective of someone I loved more than I loved life itself and would have laid my life down for if need be. Notice how that’s all in the past tense. I think there’s some small part of me that knows he did what he did to me for a real reason and has a damn good idea of what that reason is. Yes, what he did was unforgivable. However, I just know/knew him too well to accept that he’d be vindictively cruel to someone who’d been his lover for 17 years. Add to that the knowledge that he knew I’d tried quite hard to kill myself due to his words and actions and I still can’t see it. I know that he’s a coward in some respects and to be pitied in others. He’s both in this one, for sure. I deserved better and I deserve better. I deserve, if anything from him, that he be a grown ass MAN and not some cowering manchild afraid of wifey and me! I don’t know if or when he will do it. I do know that I can’t put my life on hold waiting. Nevertheless, can I promise someone else that I will forsake all others, blah, blah, blah when I’m pretty sure that she cannot give me what I need sexually? We won’t even talk about our different needs where people are concerned! And, she says there’s a large class difference that I don’t see. I just see two people with different, though not incompatible, life experiences. I don’t care that she’s the first in her family to go to college or be ABD. Why should I? Yeah, there would be some things that she couldn’t relate to in my long-ago past, but I don’t even relate to them now!

Prof. B and I talked off and on all day today from the time I woke up this afternoon until I went to bed very early. I was busy going about my errands and so forth, but she was on the other end of the line. It’s a good thing she’s on leave or I can imagine a whole lot of things wouldn’t have gotten done on her end. It took a very long time for me to know through experience that I belonged with women. Glenn had gone and Gregory and I were temporarily off for the zillionth time. I was actually with someone else who I inadvertently pissed off that weekend, but he should have said something. *sigh* My point is that I’d known since I was four years old that I liked females be they girls, young women or women. That didn’t necessarily mean that I didn’t like men. Glenn was my first whole-hearted love and that’s something he can’t take from me, nor can anyone else. He married his first whole-hearted love. I should be happy for him and, on some level I am. That doesn’t mean that I don’t know I had a right to expect more from him, especially since we both knew that he wasn’t wild about the idea of giving me up completely. Had he been honest with himself, with me, with his wife, we’d have had different lives. Mine, for sure, would have been better. Then again, he would have done what Prof. B is doing: He could not deal with me being with another woman and loving it.